


Words Will Never Show

by hhertzof



Series: Looking for Home [11]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't know what you've lost till it's gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Will Never Show

_If a picture paints a thousand words,  
Then why can't I paint you?  
The words will never show the you I've come to know._

Painting was never her strong suit, but she tried sometimes to write about the Doctor, but she could never capture him clearly. He was too complex, too vibrant. Anything she wrote came out flat.

How could she capture him in words or pictures? Best friend, lover, confidant, partner-in-crime. He was everything to her. A world in bright blue eyes and velvet. A hand to hold, unconditional support that she'd never found anywhere else.

She'd been so young when she knew him. Had loved him with a girl's love, uncritical and blind. Would he even recognise her if he saw her now? There wasn't that much of that girl left. It had been polished away by time and hardship and loneliness.

_If a face could launch a thousand ships,  
Then where am I to go?  
There's no one home but you,  
You're all that's left me too._

The TARDIS became her home after Aunt Lavinia died. If she were honest, it was her home long before that. Aunt Lavinia was rarely home and when she was, she was more interested in her experiments than her lonely, awkward niece.

The Doctor cared about her as no one else had and she gave him her heart and everything else she had to give.

_And when my love for life is running dry,  
You come and pour yourself on me._

A smile from him could brighten her worst day. When she felt like she'd never fit, and that she would fail at everything she tried, he'd be right there beside her and his quiet support and his belief in her was all she needed. He was all she needed.

She loved it. The adventure and the camraderie. Running hand in hand, saving the world, lying curled up, safe in his arms. What more could she ever want or need?

_If a man could be two places at one time,  
I'd be with you.  
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way._

She'd never admit to anything as clichéd as wanting him to stay forever. But she never wanted to think about what would happen if he left her on Earth. Or the fact that he had over 700 years on her, and a lifetime that could span millennia.

She never thought about what would happen if the planet she ended up on wasn't Earth.

For a while, she was able to put him out of her mind. To carry on with the life she built for herself on Caprica. Perhaps it wasn't the life she imagined or hoped for, but she'd found some good in it and if she wasn't happy, at least she was content.

She'd never found another friend like him. Living a lie, she hadn't dared to let anyone get too close. The public persona of secretary of Education became all she was, and she used her body to assure the support of the President should anyone discover she wasn't Laura Roslin.

She'd become a shell, though she didn't realise it for a long, long time.

_If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,  
I'd spend the end with you.  
And when the world was through,  
Then one by one the stars would all go out,  
Then you and I would simply fly away_

Her world was destroyed. Quite literally as it turned out. Suddenly everything he'd taught her took on an overwhelming importance. She made some missteps along the way, but she pulled the fleet together, and taught them what she knew about running and fighting and when each was the best choice for survival.

Bill Adama became the closest thing she'd had to a friend in decades. She still couldn't let him get too close but they could lean on each other...there was no one else.

They became lovers, and if she missed the Doctor's cool touch when she lay in Bill's arms, she never showed it. The shell she'd built around her might be cracked and fragile, but it was still there, and she could wrap herself in it when she needed to. But out there, on the run with death at their heels, she felt more alive than she had in years.

Given a choice she'd have the Doctor beside her, but he was long gone and as long as there was breath left in her lungs, she would fight to keep her adopted people alive. The cancer made that uncertain, and she'd slowly, reluctantly acknowledged that the prophecy might be true...that she wouldn't live to see Earth again. It had come back, too strong to fight. It was only a matter of time for her, and whilst she had once had all the time in the world, she'd lost that long ago.

She wrote it all down carefully, though she still couldn't capture the Doctor's essence with paper and pen, and sealed it in an envelope which she gave to Bill. He was too honourable to break the seal before she died, and afterwards it wouldn't matter to her, if he believed her or not. It might matter to the fleet, though, and he would be the one to convince them.

> "There is an Earth. It's not a legend or a fairytale. I lived there once. Keep running, keep following the map and you might well find it. Or perhaps the Doctor will find you, swooping in at the last minute to save the day as he always did. I may not live to see that, but if you see him ask him if he remembers a girl named Sarah Jane who loved him once upon a time."


End file.
